The invention generally relates to an apparatus for supporting a roll of film or similar product wound onto a support core. More specifically, but without limitation, the invention relates to an apparatus and system to facilitate improved storage, manipulation, protection and transportation of the core-wound roll product, with particular applicability to rolls of polymeric film.
Manufacturing of polymer films typically creates a long, wide web of thin film, which is rolled onto a support core, resulting in a roll of film product. These core-wound rolls facilitate manipulation, storage, protection and shipping of the polymer films. Such rolls may contain in excess of ten thousand linear meters of polymer film and may exceed four meters in width, one meter in diameter, and may weigh more than fourteen hundred kilograms (over 3000 pounds). A master roll may be subsequently slit into two or more slit rolls, each having a width of from a few centimeters to in excess of two-and-one-half meters.
Elongate tubes or mandrels called cores, commonly formed of paperboard or metal and having a hollow through-bore, are typically used to support the film product wound thereon. It is desirable to re-use cores several times before discarding, as the rolls may be unwound and rewound several times during film processing and converting, with each unwinding and rewinding operation typically requiring use of an additional core. It is desirable to re-use cores several times before discarding. Cores are typically three to ten inches in diameter, with some cores designed to protrude a few inches beyond each end of the roll. To permit a roll to be supported in a variety of different devices, some cores terminate flush with the end of the wound product and an adapter or mandrel commonly referred to as a core plug having a proper diameter may be inserted partially into the core through-bore and protrude beyond the end of the wound product. Thereby, the core plug supports the roll.
Produced film rolls are subjected to significant manipulation, stacking for storage, transportation, moving through processing and converting facilities, loading onto machinery, and shipping to end users who impose still further handling to the rolls. Rolls are commonly manipulated by equipment including automated handling equipment, core manipulators, conveyors, forklifts, dollies, and sleds. Supporting and manipulating the core-wound film roll by the core protects the film roll and prevents damaging or contaminating the film product, as may occur if a film roll directly engages a floor, table or other unclean surface. It is desirable during such handling to support and protect the roll from impact or other contact damage and from contaminating materials or moisture.
To facilitate such manipulation and protection, rolls are typically supported by a pair of vertically erect “end-boards,” each engaging and supporting an end of the core. The end-boards commonly are additionally supported by a variety of bracing, cross-members connecting both end-boards, wooden pallets, and/or crating. Wood and/ fiberboard, such as medium density fiberboard (“MDF”) are commonly used materials for crating, packaging and for end-boards, including using screws and nail type fasteners to build and secure the packaging structure. The end-boards and bracing are commonly further supported upon and strapped to a wooden pallet with strapping materials. The crated, palleted and strapped roll may then be wrapped with plastic stretch-wrap to provide further structural support and protect the film product from contamination by dust, moisture and impact damage.
In addition to being costly, a significant drawback to such packaging arrangement is that each packaged roll requires significant unpacking and disassembly time, labor and cost to prepare the roll for use or further processing. Manipulation is bulky, requiring significant room to store and manipulate the crated packages. Empty, partially disassembled crating and end-boards are bulky, not easily collapsible, and costly to dispose or return for reuse. Frequently, the strapping and/or stacking causes damage to the end-boards, either shortening their life or rendering them non-reusable.
Another significant drawback to such packaging systems is that unpacking and uncrating is generally performed by manual labor requiring substantial disassembly of the packaging system.
In some packaging systems, this operation may require personnel to manually lift, remove, and manipulate each end-board. Wood end-boards, including MDF end-boards, for large diameter rolls can be quite heavy, weighing in excess of forty pounds. Lack of handles or manipulating means result in handling difficulties and costs. Related problems may arise as the end-boards are disengaged from rolls, sometimes resulting in a core falling unimpeded, damaging the end-board and potentially contaminating or damaging several layers of film.
Repositioning a core-wound roll at another location may require securing the end-boards to the roll, such as by strapping, or manually repositioning large and/or heavy end-boards at the destination for receiving the roll thereon. De-end-boarding and re-end-boarding operations to reposition rolls are time consuming, frequently labor-intensive and may require manually transporting, manipulating and positioning of such end-boards.
To address some of these issues, the prior art has developed a few polymeric end-boards. However, numerous functional and operational deficiencies remain. U.S. Pat. No. 6,315,122 discloses a polymeric end-board. End-boards according to the '122 patent have several disadvantages. First, the channel for receiving the core does not secure the end-boards to the core when the core-wound roll is lifted vertically. This necessitates manual replacement of the end-boards when the roll is lifted, moved and ready for deposit at another location lacking means for otherwise supporting the core.
For polymeric end-boards to avoid increasing the overall width of a supported roll assembly, each end-board would have to have the same thickness between the product face and the outer face as the wood end-boards. However, polymeric end-boards of such width may be insufficiently stable. Another significant disadvantage of polymeric end-boards according to the '122 patent is that these end-boards are at least twice as thick between the product face and outer face as wooden end-boards. This extra width is provided for lateral stability, but results in a wider stacked assembly. Further, a foot member extends at the base of the '122 patent end-board laterally toward the opposing end-board and engages a lateral support member beneath the foot feature to further improve lateral stability. The feet impart stability to end-boards only when they are engaged with a supporting surface, such as a floor, a pallet, or in the case of a stacked roll, when the feet on the upper end-boards engage a pair of lateral cross-members extending between two lower end-boards. Otherwise, the feet on the upper end-boards on a stacked end-board system engage nothing and are ineffective.
Such stacked assembly embodiment inherently possesses undesirable weight, assembly and disassembly time, including the use and storage of elongated lateral supports or cross-members.
To overcome the limitation of requiring the lateral cross-members and stabilizing feet, some prior art end-boards are merely provided with a larger thickness between the product face and the outer face to provide the desired amount of lateral stability. However, such enlargement frequently renders these end-boards non-reusable or inconvenient for use in existing roll handling and storage systems.
In addition to these functional limitations, the foot features of the '122 patent end-boards are also bulky, irregular-shaped, and require additional storage and transport consideration and space when empty, including inefficient stacking and special handling. Such obstacles are of significant concern when managing an inventory of several thousand end-boards. A foot feature also undesirably adds weight to each end-board, which is of concern not only for manual manipulation of individual end-boards, but in the aggregate for large inventories.
Another disadvantage of the '122 patent end-board is that there is no direct means for locking or engaging the end-boards onto the core when the core is lifted vertically. When lifted vertically, the core would merely slide vertically out of the end-board, through the vertical channel. Securing the core to the end-board requires special handling to provide a core plug for insertion into each end of the core, wherein the core plug has a cross-sectional diameter that is larger than the width of the vertical channel. Such arrangement undesirably creates additional steps for applying and for removing the end-boards, and maintaining an inventory of a variety of core-plug size combinations to facilitate mating a variety of core sizes with one or more end-board channel sizes.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,205,411, to Born, et al., offers an end-board that has several disadvantages. First, the '411 patent end-board does not provide a vertical channel to facilitate optionally removing the core and roll vertically from the end-boards. Attaching and removing the end-boards from the cores is limited to lateral movement, requiring manual manipulation, thus discouraging use of such end-boards in many automated roll-handling systems.
An advantage of polymeric end-boards is that the polymeric end-board can be significantly lighter weight than a comparable sized MDF or wooden end-board. However, to achieve this weight reduction, polymeric end-boards are commonly fabricated with a relatively wide lattice or web of support ribs, the width being perpendicular to the plane of the product face. The '411 patent end-boards are too wide between the product face and the outer face to facilitate “drop-in” replacement for MDF and wooden end-boards in many existing storage rack systems. In storage and transport systems where space is at a premium or with fixed storage bin sizes, unnecessarily wide end-boards are not useable.
There exists a need for an end-board that overcomes the aforementioned limitations and disadvantages of the known end-boards and roll product packaging systems. There further exists need for an end-board that improves roll packaging efficiency and accommodates a wide variety of roll manipulation and handling needs, including drop-in replacement for some existing systems utilizing MDF end-boards.